Remembering Those In Uniform On Thanksgiving
I had to fly yesterday and was struck by how few uniformed personnel I saw. As I sit here with my wonderful husband and kids nearby, I think of how difficult it must be to be thousands and thousands of miles away from home. I have never felt so far away from America as those Thanksgivings I spent in London, Prague and Paris. The locals try so hard to give American expats the turkey and fixings that they desire, but there's no way to quite replicate the day outside of the states.
Tonight, Nightline will feature a special about Jake Tapper's week embedded with an Army and Medevac Unit in a remote area of Afghanistan. He did an email interview with Playbook and his answers indicated a depth of understanding military culture that is lacking in most media reports. A sample:
5) What's the mood of the troops? "Incredibly positive, considering where they live and what they do. Throughout the process of writing my book about Afghanistan - I'm focusing on the life and death of one remote outpost, Combat Outpost Keating - and while on this trip, I have been truly humbled by the men and women the nation has serving in its armed forces. It sounds cliché, I know, but they really are for the most part the best of the best: competent, positive, altruistic, dedicated. You meet them and you feel worthless, like your life has been a solipsistic trifle. I would add that there's a concern among some of the officers in Kunar Province that the pending troop drawdown might be across-the-board and not take into account how tough things are in Regional Command-East. They believe in what they're doing, and they don't want any precipitous withdrawal to make their hard work, and the hard work of those who came before them, to be for naught. That's their view, at any rate."
It is humbling how competent, positive, altruistic and dedicated our men and women in service are. I hope I can catch Nightline tonight for more.
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Remembering Those In Uniform On Thanksgiving
They are not necessarily required to travel in uniform. If they're overseas, they may be required to not travel in uniform.
Look for the "high & tight" haircut under a ball cap. There are probably more travelling than you realize.